


Dark Days

by Galadriel



Category: Underworld (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Blood Drinking, F/M, Introspection, Memories, Vampires, Vignette, Werewolves, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-12-22 12:10:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/913066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galadriel/pseuds/Galadriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Selene reflects on her past while preparing for an uncertain future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dex webster](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=dex+webster).



> Written for the 2007 Yuletide Fiction Exchange, and originally uploaded **[here](http://yuletidetreasure.org/archive/40/darkdays.html)**. dex webster asked for "[h]et, please, and I'd love to see events following the end of Evolution if you can. The vampire elders and Lucien are both dead, and the infrastructure of Corvinus' organization has been destroyed. There have to be some kind of repercussions." Many thanks to Savageseraph for acting as support and sounding board.

The woods are quiet; the beasts of the earth have long since fled, uneasy at sharing their homes with such cursed creatures. The silence that has settled in their wake is as thick as cotton wool, and though my senses have long been far beyond the abilities possessed by mortal man, have indeed been honed even sharper by Corvinus' last gift, I cannot shake the feeling that the world has been rendered mute. Though I strain my ears, reaching for some small, telltale sound, all I can hear is the soft susurration of falling snow.

Much has changed since Marcus and his brother died; much more since Lucien went into the dark from whence he came. When the first shaft of sunlight I have felt in six hundred years fell on my face and I did not burn, I feared blindness, so bright, so dazzling it appeared. I know now -- now that I've walked in dappled dawn, dazzling noon and sinking sunset -- that what I saw, what I felt was but the lightest brush of daylight, dimly struggling to illuminate the grisly scene of my misdeeds.

Even now that I have walked in the light once again, felt its warmth against my skin, as tantalising as the scent of a fresh kill, it seems alien to me, and I am still most at ease when the shadows lengthen and merge. Both Michael and I know that the arrival of dark spells danger, for that is when those who hunt us are on the move, and yet I cannot help but welcome its embrace each evening.

Corvinus' organization is in ruins, his fortune locked behind innumerable false names, his network of connections shredded as easily as a spider's web. Yet the loyalty he inspired in his men surprises me, as the scattered few left alive continue to arrive, month after month, drawn to us as if the legacy coursing through my veins sings a Siren's song.

We make a pretty picture, Michael and I, holed up in this remote Carpathian outpost, the only one of Corvinus' legion of safehouses we have so far been able to track down. The wind whistles through the fortress' halls, so long has it been since human hands tended these walls, but I do not feel the cold, and Michael has taken to shifting forms when it touches him. We have made the best of what we have found here and welcome the company Corvinus' men provide; they speak of me as if they have inherited a new leader, yet I cannot think of myself that way, cannot lift myself up as Viktor did, not without risking my blood clotting as it clings to power.

News of the covens' collapse has wafted to us on these men's wings. The Houses have crumbled in the struggle for leadership; I knew this deep in my bones before the whispers ever reached my ears. Kraven would have gloried in this defeat, shone like the saviour he so desperately wished to be. But it will not be long until they regroup, find their way, and come looking for us. It is as sure as the sun setting each night, as sure as the scent of blood draws predator to prey.

Michael worries more about the Lycans; he spends his days sniffing the air, hoping the breezes will drift back to him clean and clear. When we sleep, he dreams of them, limbs twitching as he fights invisible enemies, yet when I ask, he denies his fears. He is still mortal, at least in his heart; he believes a pretty lie will cover the truth that thrums through his veins, the truth that slips past my tongue each time we feed on each other.

He has yet to become comfortable in the body he has been given, and truly, so have I. As he is the first hybrid of his kind, as he joins the very families that hunt us, so I too have become the oldest, if not the wisest of us all. My six hundred years have lengthened into a life beyond my knowing, ten centuries more than I have seen, a legacy learned with a sip from a mortal immortal. Is this what life was like for our Elders? Did their shared memories, the many lives they lived drive them into madness as it sapped them of their humanity? I fear that end, knowing now that my own past has been seeping out of me like an untended wound from the moment Viktor set me on the path to becoming a Death Dealer.

I wonder what drives Michael. His Lycan blood seems strongest when he sniffs out my scent, a wolf searching for his mate. When we couple, he is driven by his basest needs, his cock thick and heavy between my legs, pressing into me with a growl that grows sharper, needier as my fangs sink deep into his skin. The taste of his blood is enough to make me clench around him, shudder as I ride him, drink from him, know him. I can feel him throb, and wonder, just briefly, what come and blood would taste like swallowed together.

One day I will find out.

Just as one day Michael will come to understand that the craving for blood, the need to feed usurps all others; that while we are not dead, not as the storybooks claim, our bodies are changed, and even the keenest of his mortal desires will eventually slough away. The greatest satisfaction lies in the kiss of fang to skin. One day he will know that it is his blood I crave even more than his cock. I hope that day does not dawn too soon.

As much as I wish to wander these paths of memory, I need to shake these idle notions out of my head, as wayward thoughts do nothing but hinder my focus. I have learned much since meeting Michael, but I fear what I have gained has been balanced by great losses: family, mentor, friends, and more disturbingly, clarity of mind. Once I knew my purpose, as clear as smooth, unbroken pond-glass, but as coven and clan alike tumble, the ripples spread, revealing my reflection, warped by time and neglect. Six hundred years of other people seeing use in me has stripped away my ability to see myself. Rudderless, my mind drifts, and I lack stars to help navigate the way.

Corvinus told me I would be the future, but he did not warn me that the future is uncertain. _I_ am uncertain.

The crack is as loud as a gunshot in these snow-dampened woods, as shocking and unwelcome as a frigid knife thrust into burning muscle. I turn my head, scanning the treeline that, to my dismay, is already fading away into darkness. Wetness has seeped into my legs where I kneel, finally soaking through the cloth, cooler than my own skin.

The broken branch, hidden from my eyes but not my ears, thumps against a gloved palm, the sound muted, but not completely muffled. Mistakes are not acceptable when stalking one's prey, and while the hand's owner has sought to correct his misstep in the catching, it is enough to alert me to his presence.

A whisper, and Michael is at my side, hairs bristling, only a half-step from changing. "Lycans," he murmurs, breathing in deep, and indeed, if I strain my ears, I can hear the telltale thudding of canine hearts. But there is a tang of blood in the air as well, the sour-sweet taste of ancient iron carried by my own kind.

So it has come to this.

Night has fallen, and the shadows have merged; clan and coven, pack and colony have joined against us. My gun is weighty in my hand, grip fitting in my fingers _just so_ , and as I chamber the first round of daylight, Michael's spine begins to bend and reshape, his nails lengthening into claws.

Who knew we would unite our separate selves so?


End file.
